Austin, Texas metal luminaries THE SWORD will release their fourth album, “Apocryphon”, on October 22 via their new label partners Razor & Tie. The CD was produced and engineered by J. Robbins (CLUTCH, JAWBOX) at Magpie Cage Studios and will feature cover art by famed comic book artist J.H. Williams III (Batwoman, Promethea).

Asked about the band’s decision to work with J. Robbins on “Apocryphon” after self-producing two records and then working with Matt Bayles, THE SWORD guitarist Kyle Shutt told AltPress.com, “We’re all huge CLUTCH fans, and we know those guys real well. [James] did two of their last three records, and those sound great, so we figured it was a no-brainer. We called him up and he was into it. He saw our live show at a club in Baltimore on the tour before we came here so he could get a feel of the kind of show we put on because we wanted to make an album that sounds like we do live in a club. And it was great. It was a real speedy process.”

On the topic of the musical direction of the new album, Shutt said, “It is a reflection of everything that we [have gone] through and the lessons we learned. We then deal with these situations metaphorically in our lyrics. This record is just 10 banging hard rockers. There’s no real ‘stick-out’ thrash song, or, like, this one is the ballad. I don’t think there’s going to be any instrumental songs on this record, either, so that’ll be a first for us. It’s just 10 kick-ass rock songs.”

Regarding the subject matter covered in the new songs‘ lyrics, Shutt said, “There are lyrical themes that weave in and out of the songs, but there’s no story or anything like that. With ‘Warp Riders’, J.D. [guitarist/vocalist John Cronise] had already written [the story] and now he [doesn’t] have the time to sit down and write another book. We had the idea to make a comic book for ‘Warp Riders’, but we had some really poor management at the time, so nothing really came together with that and it was going to cost so much money that it never saw the light of day. It was just a nice thing we did. Now we’re moving on to other things.”

Austin, Texas metal luminaries THE SWORD will release their fourth album, “Apocryphon”, on October 22 via their new label partners Razor & Tie. The CD was produced and engineered by J. Robbins (CLUTCH, JAWBOX) at Magpie Cage Studios and will feature cover art by famed comic book artist J.H. Williams III (Batwoman, Promethea).

In other news, THE SWORD will appear on the Monday, September 3 episode of Travel Channel‘s highly rated show “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations – The Final Tour” at 9:00 p.m. The segment was shot in March in Austin, Texas at the SXSW music festival.

A description of the segment: “First Tony grabs a drink with THE SWORD at their favorite local bar, The Draught House. They then take him to Quality Seafood Market for some fish tacos, fried catfish, and oysters — all with the band’s brand-name hot sauce.”

THE SWORD‘s branded hot sauce “Tears Of Fire”, will be available on Tuesday, September 4 at TearsOfJoySauces.com.

Creator of the sauce, Brian Rush, says, “[THE SWORD] wanted something hot, but with a good flavor. I already make a really hot red habanero sauce (August In Austin), so it was just a matter of taking that over the top. I added the infamous Ghost Chile, the hottest pepper in the world along with some extra spice to give it another dimension of zing. This is an otherworldly sauce with both flavor and heat, named after a killer song for one of the best bands Austin has to offer.”

Asked about the band’s decision to work with J. Robbins on “Apocryphon” after self-producing two records and then working with Matt Bayles, THE SWORD guitarist Kyle Shutt told AltPress.com, “We’re all huge CLUTCH fans, and we know those guys real well. [James] did two of their last three records, and those sound great, so we figured it was a no-brainer. We called him up and he was into it. He saw our live show at a club in Baltimore on the tour before we came here so he could get a feel of the kind of show we put on because we wanted to make an album that sounds like we do live in a club. And it was great. It was a real speedy process.”

On the topic of the musical direction of the new album, Shutt said, “It is a reflection of everything that we [have gone] through and the lessons we learned. We then deal with these situations metaphorically in our lyrics. This record is just 10 banging hard rockers. There’s no real ‘stick-out’ thrash song, or, like, this one is the ballad. I don’t think there’s going to be any instrumental songs on this record, either, so that’ll be a first for us. It’s just 10 kick-ass rock songs.”

Regarding the subject matter covered in the new songs’ lyrics, Shutt said, “There are lyrical themes that weave in and out of the songs, but there’s no story or anything like that. With ‘Warp Riders’, J.D. [guitarist/vocalist John Cronise] had already written [the story] and now he [doesn’t] have the time to sit down and write another book. We had the idea to make a comic book for ‘Warp Riders’, but we had some really poor management at the time, so nothing really came together with that and it was going to cost so much money that it never saw the light of day. It was just a nice thing we did. Now we’re moving on to other things.”

Fan-filmed video footage of Austin, Texas metal luminaries THE SWORD performing four brand new songs — tentatively titled “Apocryphon”, “Veil”, “Execrator” and “Stormwitch” — this past Friday, June 22 at The Note In West Chester, Pennsylvania can be seen below.

THE SWORD will enter Magpie Cage Studios at the end of the month to begin recording their fourth album, “Apocryphon”, for an early fall release via their new label partners Razor & Tie. The CD will be produced and engineered by J. Robbins (CLUTCH, JAWBOX) and will feature cover art by famed comic book artist J.H. Williams III (Batwoman, Promethea).

THE SWORD will commence a worldwide tour in support of “Apocryphon” in October.

In advance of last month’s premiere of this year’s movie “Marvel’s The Avengers”, THE SWORD released “Hammer Of Heaven”, an early track dating back to 2003 that was not included on “Age Of Winters”, which the band submitted for inclusion on “Avengers Assemble”, a 14-track compilation of music from and inspired by the film.

Due to severe space limitations, the song did not make the final track listing, but the band, along with their new label partners at Razor & Tie decided to make “Hammer Of Heaven” available digitally to coincide with the release of the film. Click here to download the song on iTunes.

THE SWORD‘s third album, “Warp Riders”, sold around 8,900 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 47 on The Billboard 200 chart.

“Warp Riders” marked the first release where the group has worked with an outside producer. Helmed by Matt Bayles (PEARL JAM, MASTODON, ISIS), the album was anchored by an epic science-fiction narrative. The storyline was a psychedelic space opera that explored temporal themes of death and rebirth. “Warp Riders” also found THE SWORD expanding its range from pure metal to include bone-crunching hard rock at large.